Like the PSS-I, it identifies both PTSD symptoms and their severity and has two additional items on survivor and behavior guilt. The SIP is a 19-item questionnaire that is also based on the DSM-IV criteria for PTSD (Davidson et al. The PSS-I has the advantage of taking only about 20 to 30 minutes to administer. This interview was developed for and has been tested on civilian populations with known trauma history, but has not been tested on combat veterans. The PSS-I may be slightly better at detecting actual PTSD, whereas the CAPS is more accurate at ruling out false positives (Foa and Tolin 2000). It shows good agreement with the CAPS and the SCID in diagnosing PTSD. It contains 17 questions that correspond to each of the DSM criteria and participants’ responses are rated by a health professional from zero (not at all) to 3 (5 or more times per week/very much). The PSS-I is a semi-structured interview that also assesses PTSD symptoms according to DSM-IV and their severity (Foa and Tolin 2000). The SCID does not assess the severity of PTSD symptoms the determination of whether a symptom passes a severity threshold is left to clinical judgment or further testing with a symptom-severity scale. Unlike the CAPS, the SCID can be used to identify comorbid psychiatric disorders (Briere 2004) that is important because comorbid psychiatric disorders are common in PTSD patients. The SCID, like the CAPS, should be administered by a trained health professional. Like the CAPS, the SCID-PTSD module has questions related to each of the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria patients’ responses are listed as present, absent, or subthreshold. The SCID is a widely used structured clinical interview for psychiatric disorders that contains a PTSD-specific module with 19 items. The CAPS generally takes at least 40 to 60 minutes to administer (Foa and Tolin 2000). The CAPS contains 34 questions, 17 of which measure symptom frequency and 17 measure symptom intensity. It has the advantage of assessing the array of PTSD symptoms, as well as their severity (frequency and intensity), but it cannot be used to determine the presence of comorbid psychiatric disorders. The CAPS should be administered by a trained health professional and can be used to determine whether a patient meets the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for PTSD. The CAPS is a semi-structured interview, developed by the Department of Veterans Affairs National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The use of those instruments can inform professional judgment in a clinical setting, but they are more commonly used in epidemiologic and treatment outcomes research. He or she might also use a structured or semi-structured diagnostic interview such as the CAPS, SCID, PTSD Symptom Scale-Interview Version (PSS-I), the Structured Interview for PTSD (SIP), the DIS-IV, or the CIDI. However, as noted in Briere (2004) “no psychological test can replace the focused attention, visible empathy, and extensive clinical experience of a well-trained and seasoned trauma clinician.”Ī health professional might use an unstructured interview to elicit information from a patient about symptoms related to each of the diagnostic criteria for PTSD. Screening tools can be useful in initiating a conversation about exposure to traumatic events or possible PTSD symptoms. Such measures are used most frequently in research settings, some might be used clinically to provide additional sources of documentation, and others might be given to veterans at a health facility prior to their first interview with health professional. For example, there are brief screening tools, such as the 4-item Primary Care PTSD Screen, developed by the Department of Veterans Affairs National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder self-report screening instruments, such as the Posttraumatic Diagnostic Scale and structured or semi-structured interviews, such as the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS), the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID), the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for DSM-IV (DIS-IV), and the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI), all of which might be used prior to or as a complement to the clinical interview. These include screening tools, diagnostic instruments, and trauma and symptom severity scales. Although an optimal evaluation of a patient for PTSD consists of a face-to-face interview by a mental health professional trained in diagnosing psychiatric disorders, several instruments are available to facilitate the diagnosis and assessment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
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